Recently I discovered that MOPZ no longer selects the latest available Java patches for the selected Support Package. It seems that SAP has changed the default behavior in MOPZ (my Solution Manager is 7.1 SP12, I believe it has MOPZ 3.0) so that it selects patch level 0 when choosing stack dependent files.
I chose to post this blog to SAP NetWeaver Administrator instead of SAP Solution Manager or Application Lifecycle Management because I felt that this is a basis concern and most basis folks are tuned to the selected space.
Now what's the big deal? The fact that unless you are aware of the new default behavior you might end up with a NON-WORKING SYSTEM. Sorry SAP, your 0 patch levels are very rarely production quality. As it was when we updated our NetWeaver 7.31 SP10 system to NetWeaver 7.31 SP16, even Portal Content Catalog wasn't operable as demonstrated by the attached screenshot.
Portal Content Catalog broken after applying SPS16 (patch level 0) for NetWeaver 7.31
Okay, got it. Anything else I should be aware of? Unfortunately yes. Unless you use the "Add Java Patches" in the stack dependent files step of MOPZ while generating the XML stack, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO APPLY PATCHES LATER ON, unless you do it manually that is. MOPZ seems to use the selected set of files to determine available patches, if your system is already at the target level, you won't have any files to select and thus MOPZ won't find any patches either. Basically what this meant for us is that we had to restore the system and to start over. I did go through the manual process of selecting the latest patch levels of about 15 components always taking a note of the dependencies. It is however always a gamble to manually patch the system, you don't know for sure will your defects be fixed by the selection of components nor will you be aware of all possible side effects.
Closing words? In my opinion, although I don't know the reasoning behind the change, the new behavior is very disruptive. I have been patching Java systems with MOPZ for at least past 5 years and relying on it applying the latest patches, which it no longer does. MOPZ should at least give a very visible warning that the default behavior has been changed and that Java patches are no longer applied by default.
And yes, SAP has released KBA 2022451 to address the topic although it doesn't address/cover everything in my opinion, especially not addressing that the default behavior in MOPZ has been changed.